CE-08.06

Title:

Author(s):

Jody Vandergriff

Oral Defence Date:

Monday, July 7, 2008 - 15:00

Location:

TH 331

Committee:

Professors Dragutin Petkovic and James Wong

Abstract:

With the rise of popularity of digital media for both personal and professional use, there is an increased need for software to manage these heterogeneous types of data. Digital Asset Management, or DAM, as it is called, is software the aids in the management, organization, and accessibility of digital assets, or multi-media. DAM software packages are well-developed and available from many popular vendors. However, these software packages tend to be very expensive and often cost-prohibitive for many organizations. In addition, they were traditionally designed to run on in-house servers, thereby requiring the appropriate hardware and in-house system administrators, a requirement that is not feasible on a modest budget. In recent years, there has been an increased prevalence of web-based applications and the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model. Based on this model, a completely web-based and fully hosted DAM software package could provide the same benefits of traditional DAM applications at a fraction of the cost. In this report, we describe the design, development and evaluation of a completely web-based digital asset management platform, WebDAM, and analyze its usefulness for academic institutions. WebDAM is fast and affordable to deploy because of its web-based, SaaS approach, and offers a comprehensive set of features and functionalities to store, search, manage, and distribution digital media within an organization. Today, WebDAM is a successful commercial application that has been adopted by numerous universities, non-profit institutions, and organizations.